History

Arbury Hall, like so many other great country houses, was founded in Henry II’s reign as a monastery but suffered dissolution and confiscation at the hands of Henry VIII in 1536. During Queen Elizabeth I’s reign Arbury was bought by a lawyer, Edmund Anderson, who totally rebuilt it in the Elizabethan style. Anderson, who was appointed Chief Justice of the Common Pleas by the Queen in 1582, found Arbury inconveniently far from London, and, therefore, he exchanged it in 1586 for Harefield Place, Middlesex, the property of John Newdegate.

Arbury Hall has been the centre of the Estate since 1582 when the Newdegate family obtained Arbury.